Term Sheet — Tuesday, February 27

CO-WORKING WARS

Good morning, Term Sheet readers.

Industrious, a co-working office space startup that competes with WeWork, raised $80 million in venture funding. Riverwood Capital and Fifth Wall Ventures led the round. The startup said it’ll use the funds to continue growing its roster of corporate clients. So far, Industrious says it expanded its shared office space footprint to 25 U.S. cities last year and grew revenue by 150% over the past three years.

That’s impressive, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Industrious will go head to head with WeWork, the 800-pound gorilla backed by SoftBank. Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari told Axios that he’s not worried about the competition because WeWork is “a mass product, while his company is providing a premium product for a different type of customers.” Of course, that statement is not quite accurate as WeWork is going after corporate clients as well, including GE, HSBC, Salesforce and Microsoft.

Here’s the thing: Money matters. As Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said about accepting an investment from SoftBank, “Rather than having their capital cannon facing me, I’d rather have their capital cannon behind me.” And right now, Industrious’ total venture funding of $142 million pales in comparison to WeWork’s $6.9 billion. Fifth Wall Ventures partner Brad Greiwe said, “While billions of dollars of SoftBank money is extremely helpful, one thing that SoftBank doesn’t control is the assets themselves.”

Although this sounds good, it’s unclear what is meant by “control the assets” given that both WeWork and Industrious lease properties and then sublease to their customers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

BIG BID: Comcast launched itself into the middle of the planned takeover of the British broadcast giant Sky by 21st Century Fox, with a competing bid that blows the Fox offer out of the water. Comcast has now offered £12.50 ($17.46) per share of Sky, which is 16% higher than Fox’s offer and would give Sky an equity value of $31 billion. A Sky acquisition would be a big deal for Comcast because it would take its international earnings from a 9% share of total revenues to a full quarter. Read more at Fortune.

VENTURE DEALS

• Peakon, a London and Copenhagen-based people analytics company, raised $22 million in funding. Balderton Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including EQT Ventures fund, Idinvest Partners, and Sunstone.

• CyberX, a Boston-based company that monitors industrial networks for targeted attacks, raised $18 million in Series B funding. Norwest Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including Glilot Capital Partners, Flint Capital, ff Venture Capital and OurCrowd.

• May Mobility, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based manufacturer of autonomous vehicles, raised $11.5 million in seed funding, according to TechCrunch. Investors include BMWi Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures. Read more.

• Moltin, a provider of an API-based digital commerce solution, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Underscore VC led the round, and was joined by investors including Connect Ventures and Frontline Ventures.

• ZenBusiness, an Austin, Texas-based company helping small businesses launch, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Lerer Hippeau led the round, and was joined by investors including Greycroft, Slow Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and Founders Fund.

• Seneca Systems, a Redwood City, Calif.-based provider of software for government workers, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Initialized Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Govtech Fund, Cowboy Ventures, and Y Combinator.

• PawnGuru, a Detroit-based online marketplace connecting consumers with local pawn shops, raised $2.5 million in Series A funding. Impact America Fund and Invest Detroit Ventures led the round.

HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES DEALS

• Senti Biosciences, a South San Francisco-based company focused on research of synthetic biotechnology to develop therapeutics, raised $53 million in funding, according to TechCrunch. New Enterprise Associates led the round round, and was joined by investors including 8VC, Amgen Ventures, Pear Ventures, Lux Capital, Menlo Ventures, Allen & Company, Nest.Bio, Omega Funds, Goodman Capital, and LifeForce Capital. Read more.

PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS

• HG Capital will sell Iris Software Group Ltd, a U.K.-based provider of accounting and payroll software, in a deal that could value the software company at over 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion), according to SkyNews.

OTHER DEALS

• Liberty Media Corp proposed to buy a 40% stake in a restructured version of iHeartMediaInc (OTCPK:IHRT) for $1.16 billion, according to Reuters. Read more.

IPOs

• FMC Corp., the Philadelphia-based chemical goods maker, is revving up for a $500 million IPO of its lithium business on the NYSE this year, Reuters reports citing the company’s chief financial officer. Read more.

• Glassdoor, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based job searching website, is seeking banks for an IPO as soon as this year, Bloomberg reports citing sources. The company is valued at over $1 billion. Read more.